Early Medieval England Research Articles

Genesis of English Language with its Cybernetics Origin

This paper is looking into the genesis of the English language with its Cybernetics origins and hence looking into the possibilities of developing new techniques to be used in speech processing applications. As we all know, English is the third-most-spoken language in the world by a number of native speakers, which is used to create the present world, which is also a West Germanic language that was first spoken early medieval England, and is now a global lingua franca (Bridge language). The analysis to synthesis power of this language about any matter ranging from tangible to intangible, first order cybernetics to second order cybernetics is based on the basic structure of the English language as described in this paper, as a language with Twenty-Eight alphabets with Alpha in the beginning and Omega in the end, together constituting Symbol of Word connected with lemniscus, along with the singularity. This paper is trying bring out how the English words can be processed, generated, analyzed, synthesized, and how it can be used for prediction, using Logical Symbol of Cybernetics and Symbol of Word, in a modern data-driven society. Also when the activities in computers with artificial intelligence are designed for including Speech recognition and Learning, this paper gives an optimum solution in machine learning and AI by providing a new model in speech signal processing. Keywords: Biolinguistics, Evolutionary linguistics, Cybernetics, Cognition, Cognitive Science, Language, English, Linguistics, Clinical linguistics, Computational linguistics, Forensic linguistics, Speech Processing, Natural-Language Processing, Biosemiotics, Micro linguistics, Neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, Cognitive psychology, Data Science, Speech Analysis, Speech Synthesis, Speech Recognition, Spoken Language Processing, Computational Cybernetics Cite this Article Reji M. Issac. Genesis of English Language with its Cybernetics Origin. Current Trends in Signal Processing . 2020; 10(1): 19–28p.

“Charms,” Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England

“Charms,” Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England

Embroidery and its early medieval audience: a case study of sensory engagement

ABSTRACT Embroidery made and used in early medieval England (c. 450–1100) was considered fine art. Today 43 surviving examples known or believed to have been made in early medieval England have been stylistically and technically analysed, and placed within chronological timeframes. Recently the embroideries and their makers’ positions within early medieval society have also been explored, and ‘life’ biographies have been written for some pieces. Until now, the viewers’ experiences of encountering and interacting with embroidery have never been fully investigated. This paper uses sensory archaeology as a technique to access the early medieval ‘mindset’ in order to explore how people actually engaged with embroidery as opposed to what each piece was meant to show or tell them. The early 10th-century embroidered stole and maniple, which were rediscovered in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral in the 19th century, are used as a case study.

Intersections of Gender and Disability for Women in Early Medieval England: A Preliminary Investigation

ABSTRACTThis article considers how disability affects women in early medieval England through an examination of the word, “unhælu,” a term that means unhealthy, but could refer to many different maladies that could constitute a disability. Women were particularly susceptible to unhælu due to the effects of poor nutrition and infection during childbirth and menstruation, and women’s unhælu could be treated through their reproductive organs, even for unrelated ailments. For instance, a lack of speech could be remedied with a pessary and an emmenagogue. Social status played a large role in how being unhælu affected a woman’s life, as a rich woman could pay for care and transportation, rather than relying on family. In religious contexts, being unhælu could have advantages, particularly if it made it possible to transcend corporality and to preserve virginity.

Vitamin D Deficiency Rickets In Early Medieval Wales: A Multi-Methodological Case Study

ABSTRACTAn early medieval cemetery dating to between the eighth and eleventh centuries AD was excavated beneath St Patrick’s Chapel at Whitesands Bay, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The cemetery population includes adult males, females and a large proportion of non-adults below 18 years of age. Osteological analysis revealed a case of vitamin D deficiency rickets in a 2–3 year old child, which was further confirmed through the histological analysis of the first permanent molar tooth. This paper presents the results of the osteological, radiographic and histological analyses, which support the diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency. The research demonstrates the valuable contribution a multi-methodological approach can make to the investigation of non-adult health in the past. The evidence collated here allows further exploration of the possible circumstances that led to this condition, and makes a valuable contribution to an otherwise small number of cases of rickets from early medieval Britain.

Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England by Benjamin A. Saltzman

Reviewed by: Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England by Benjamin A. Saltzman Mahel Hamroun Benjamin A. Saltzman, Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2019) xv + 339 pp., 12 ills. Equal parts conceptual history and literary criticism, Benjamin A. Saltzman's first book, Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England, is an ambitious work. Weaving together a dazzling array of sources and scholarship, Bonds of Secrecy interrogates the ethics of secrecy in a society bound by an omniscient God. The belief that God had ultimate control over the concealment and revelation of secrets both shaped and was shaped by the institutions of the early medieval English world and produced, in turn, a culture of scrutiny that profoundly informed literary practice. Part 1 considers the problem of secrecy in early medieval English legal institutions. Through the analysis of secular law codes and diplomatic sources, the first chapter demonstrates the myriad ways in which early medieval English law was preoccupied with "crimes of concealment" (23). Saltzman argues that this preoccupation reflects efforts by emerging English institutions of power to [End Page 297] maintain legal authority. Secrecy was a threat because it undermined the political epistemology which underpinned that authority—after all, "what is unknown to the sovereign cannot be governed" (19). For this reason, the regulation of both major and minor crimes of concealment would increasingly come to resemble that of treason. Yet crimes of concealment were difficult to regulate. Judicial testimony—a crucial part of early medieval English legal procedure—was "particularly hospitable to deliberate acts of concealment," simultaneously offering the promise of proof and the potential for concealment (20). Cognizant of their own limitations in ensuring the authenticity of such testimonies, early medieval English kings deployed the juridical supervision of God to bolster their authority, harnessing God's omniscience through oaths and ordeals. As the second chapter reveals, such reliance on God primed the law for dealing with situations in which testimony was "not just obscured but inaccessible" (60). Through the close reading of the 53rd law of King Ine's code, which (among other things) considers the vouching of a dead man's grave to warranty, Saltzman presents the grave as a special site for secrecy and potential truth: with the hand of God, "even the silence of death could be transcended" (61). Part 2 of the book moves from the royal court to the monastery, where the "secrets of one's heart" emerge as subjects of particularly stringent scrutiny (70). Secrecy was not, however, always bad. Chapters 3 and 4 draw from monastic rules and hagiography to explore the tensions between desirable and undesirable forms of secrecy within the monastic ideal. Contrary to modern universalist notions of secrecy, Saltzman reveals that discourses of secrecy in early English monastic communities were highly contingent on the specific traditions and actions from which they stemmed. This contingency, coupled with the distinct precision of monastic scrutiny, created spaces for sanctioned—even encouraged—forms of secrecy. The difference hinged on the acknowledgement of God's omniscience. If crimes of concealment represented a theft of knowledge from the crown in secular law, in the monastic context they were effectively theft from God. As Saltzman reminds us, however, stealing knowledge from an omniscient God was an exercise in futility. Illicit secrecy was therefore dangerous, not because it deprived God of knowledge, but because it signaled disbelief in God's omniscience. Such disbelief, Saltzman argues, was tantamount to surrendering oneself to the devil, an egregious crime for one ostensibly bound in servitude to God. Confession, conversely, becomes an act of faith, freeing oneself from the devil's shackles and delivering one's soul into God's possession. The purest expression of this deliverance was, perhaps paradoxically, itself form of secrecy: a "deliberate and conscientious" separation from other human beings in service of an equally deliberate and conscientious openness to God (81). This secrecy, which Saltzman calls "spiritual secrecy," came to be a fundamental feature of early English monastic life (96). Indeed, early English monastic architecture encouraged spatial separation in...

'Charms', Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England by Ciaran Arthur

Reviewed by: 'Charms', Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England by Ciaran Arthur Ilona Tuomi Keywords Anglo-Saxon magic, divination, Anglo-Saxon charms, galdor, Christianity, paganism, the Exeter Book, Beowulf, Vercelli Book, Vitellius Psalter, liturgy, gibberish charms, early medieval England ciaran arthur. 'Charms', Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England. Anglo-Saxon Studies 32. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 252; 3 illustrations. Having heard Ciaran Arthur present his studies on Anglo-Saxon charms (back then without the scare quotes), I was very excited to learn that he has published a full monograph on the topic. And I, for one, am very pleased by the result: Arthur's new publication is fresh, original, provocative, and well presented. It is also timely; for even if charm studies are very much alive and strong at the moment, and one hardly sees a medieval charms paper without the manuscript context being discussed, Arthur's work develops the study of the manuscript contexts into a full argument about textual genres. One might wonder why Arthur has chosen to include those scare quotes around the word "charm" in his title. This becomes very evident already in the Introduction as Arthur states that his book "offers a re-evaluation of the concept of'charms' in Anglo-Saxon culture and proposes an alternative reading of these rituals as mainstream Christian rites." He then lists three principal issues that his publication engages with: 1) "the translation of the Old English noun 'galdor' as 'charm'"; 2) "the manuscript contexts of rituals that are included in this corpus"; and 3) "the phenomenon of'gibberish' writing that is used as a defining characteristic of'charms'" (2). Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since the antiquarian Thomas Oswald Cockayne completed his three-volume work Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England in 1866. As Arthur relates, Cockayne identified a total of thirty-two rituals from ten Anglo-Saxon manuscripts as belonging to the "charm" tradition (3). After this, as is shown in Arthur's overview of the historiography of the genre, scholars have added more rituals to this corpus. In short, traditional "understandings of'charms' have imposed connotations of magic, paganism, occultism, and superstition onto definitions of the Old English galdor" (17). Arthur endeavours to set the record straight by going back to the primary texts and contexts—both the manuscript contexts and the greater historical milieu in which these texts were written down by the medieval scribes—in order to argue that "'charms' were written down as experimental Christian rituals in late Anglo-Saxon England." According to Arthur, once these texts are read in their proper manuscript contexts, they "raise critical questions about Anglo-Saxon paganism, and they offer important insights into early English Christianity" (2). Arthur's book is divided into three parts according to the three core issues ofhis study, the first ofwhich engages with the translation ofthe Old English noun galdor (pl. galdru) as "charm." In Chapter 1, "Kill or Cure: Anglo-Saxon [End Page 164] Understanding of Galdor," Arthur explores the different non-ritual texts which use this word. Given that the Toronto Dictionary of Old English offers a wealth of definitions for the word galdor (including "poem," "song," "incantation," "charm," "spell," "illusion," "deception," "snake-charmer," "enchanter," "wizard," "divination," "soothsaying," "prophesying," "necromancy," "communication with the dead," "sorcery," and "sound/call of a horn"), I salute Arthur for having risen to the challenge of thoroughly investigating the instances in which the word actually appears and how the AngloSaxon scribes used it (21). This emic approach is not always covered in scholarship—even though, in my opinion, it is crucial in studying charms (or "charms") in any given language group at an any given time period. Arthur thus ploughs through examples in which the word galdor appears. The non-condemnatory instances of using the word (outside the actual ritual use) are found in saints' lives, wisdom poems, two riddles, and in the Old English epic poem Beowulf, where galdor is used to describe "the sound of a horn in battle and a supernatural barrier that protects the dragon's hoard" (24). According to Arthur, most surviving appearances of galdor (this means over one hundred...

Transformation in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Toller Lectures on Art, Archaeology and Text ed. by Charles Insley and Gale R. Owen-Crocker

Reviewed by: Transformation in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Toller Lectures on Art, Archaeology and Text ed. by Charles Insley and Gale R. Owen-Crocker Greg Waite Insley, Charles, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, eds, Transformation in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Toller Lectures on Art, Archaeology and Text, Oxford and Philadelphia, Oxbow Books, 2017; paperback; pp. xviii, 136; 30 colour and 16 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £38.00; ISBN 9781785704970. This volume contains five lectures delivered at Manchester University between 2009 and 2014, with an introduction by Gale Owen-Crocker, and an index. As proclaimed in the title, 'transformation' is a key theme explored in the lectures, highlighting the Anglo-Saxon capacity for 'adaptation to new circumstances' (p. xv). All contributors have long and distinguished careers and the experience and breadth of vision necessary to explore successfully such a theme. In different ways, each lecture provides a window into and a summation of their respective research interests. John Hines's contribution is titled 'A New Chronology and New Agenda: The Problematic Sixth Century'. This lecture arises out of the large-scale, multi-authored research report edited by Hines and Alex Bayliss, Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries ad: A Chronological Framework (England Society for Medieval Archaeology, 2013). Hines discusses the team's revision of major material-cultural dates bounding the period of particular types of furnished burial, previously placed with the period c. 570–720, but, under the revised chronology, considered to span the period c. 530–680. Within the first half of this period, observed shifts in material culture in both male and female graves raise new questions about the environmental and sociopolitical circumstances that may lie behind the steep decline in burial with grave-goods around 570, followed [End Page 261] by a resurgence, particularly for female graves, after the first quarter of the seventh century. In 'Anglo-Saxon Art: Tradition and Transformation', Leslie Webster draws on themes explored in her major study, Anglo-Saxon Art (Cornell University Press, 2012). Ranging over six centuries of Anglo-Saxon art, from zoomorphic decoration and figural decoration on the earliest metalwork (and the brooding pottery figure on a cremation urn lid from Spong Hill) to the Bayeux Tapestry, Webster focuses on the nature of visual literacy and the decoding (as in riddles) of artistic motifs in the pagan period, running through their adaptation and fusion with imported traditions mainly introduced with the advent of Christianity. Both before and after this watershed in artistic traditions, the Anglo-Saxons succeeded in transforming traditions unique to their particular insular environment. Barbara Yorke's 'King Alfred and Weland: Tradition and Transformation at the Court of King Alfred' assesses the degree to which Alfred had transformed himself into a philosopher king (as his biographer Asser portrays him) in relation to the traditional expectations of a war leader. The appeal to Alfred of heroic and martial figures like Weland and Hercules, either already present or inserted into his translations, and his idiosyncratic treatment of free will in the translation of Boethius suggest (together with his portrayal in the Chronicle) that he wished to present himself as a martial figure as much as if not more than an intellectual one. Michelle Brown, in a wide-ranging lecture titled 'Strategies of Visual Literacy in Insular and Anglo-Saxon Book Culture', explores the 'complex cognitive challenges of fully integrated word, sound and image' (p. 99) initiated in book culture in early medieval Britain and Ireland. Brown's mastery of her field is evident in, for example, her exegesis of the Ezra portrait in Codex Amiatinus as encapsulating the dynamics of scholarship and pastoral care in early book production. In 'The Vercelli Book as a Context for The Dream of the Rood', Éamonn Ó'Carragáin examines how the poem fits into a context of thematically selected texts dealing with approaching death and Judgement. He considers the manuscript to be an old-fashioned one, reflecting the culture of pre-Benedictine reform houses of canons. Equally interesting is the author's discussion of the other two texts of the Dream in context: that is, on the Brussels Cross and the Ruthwell Cross respectively. This book will be essential...

Race-ing Plainchant: Theodore of Tarsus, Hadrian of Canterbury, and the Voices of Music History

Despite the demonstrable importance of Bede’s writings for understanding the history of music in early medieval England, his accounts of the practice and teaching of sacred music in Canterbury have attracted little attention. This article argues that Bede’s descriptions of Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury, and his colleague Abbot Hadrian indicate that their work was central to the spread of sacred music outward from Kent and into Northern England. The significance of situating the Canterbury school vis-à-vis early medieval Christian musical and devotional practice is heightened by Bede’s statements that Theodore and Hadrian were born in the Middle East and North Africa, respectively. This essay considers how a broader dissemination of this information might impact our understanding of the history of medieval music in England specifically, and the North Atlantic more broadly. Rather than including Hadrian and Theodore in the music historical narrative as a tokenistic gesture towards diversity, it is argued that acknowledging and centering their contributions assists in the larger project of reframing medieval music as the product of a multiracial, trans-European network of musicians.

ПИСЬМЕННЫЕ ИСТОЧНИКИ АНГЛОСАКСОНСКОГО ПЕРИОДА

The article considers literary sources of early medieval England. The Anglo-Saxon period is considered as the most important one in the British history, and the author seeks to examine a wide range of the Anglo-Saxon literary sources written in Old English. The comparative analysis allows identifying the value of the sources under study from historical, culturological, literary and linguistic viewpoints.

Birch bark tar in early Medieval England – Continuity of tradition or technological revival?

Birch bark tar is a manufactured product with a history of production and use that reaches back to the Palaeolithic. Its sticky, water resistant and biocidal properties mean that it has a wide range of applications, for example, as a multipurpose adhesive, sealant and in medicine. Archaeological evidence for birch bark tar in the old world covers a broad geographic range from the UK to the Baltic and from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. In the east and north of this range there is continuity of use to modern times but in western Europe and the British Isles the use of birch bark tar has generally been viewed as limited to prehistory, with gradual displacement by pine tars during the Roman period.Here, we report new finds of birch bark tar from two early Medieval sites in the east of England. Analysis by HT-GC/MS to identify the tars also revealed fatty material, possibly added to modify the tar. The different contexts of the finds point to diverse applications of the material: in one case perhaps a medicine, the other associated with a ceramic container, possibly used for processing the tar. The results present the first identification of birch bark tar from early Medieval archaeological contexts in the UK. Together they indicate a later period of use for birch bark tar in the UK than has been previously observed and raise the question of whether this indicates evidence of a longer continuity of use than hitherto recognised or a later reintroduction of the technology in the Medieval period, in which case the similarities between the find sites, both early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries with comparable assemblages of grave goods, may be significant.

Ciaran Arthur, “Charms”, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England. (Anglo-Saxon Studies.) Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2018. Pp. viii, 252; 3 black-and-white figures. $99. ISBN: 978-1-78327-313-3.

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsCiaran Arthur, “Charms”, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England. (Anglo-Saxon Studies.) Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2018. Pp. viii, 252; 3 black-and-white figures. $99. ISBN: 978-1-78327-313-3.John D. NilesJohn D. NilesUniversity of Wisconsin and University of California Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 95, Number 1January 2020 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/706617 Views: 109Total views on this site Copyright 2020 by the Medieval Academy of America. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Abstract pattern on stone fragments from Applecross

Eighteen early medieval carved stone fragments (Applecross 5.1–5.18) were recently recovered from Applecross, Wester Ross, Scotland, a site that functioned as an important ecclesiastical centre in the early medieval period. These 18 fragments join a pre-existing collection of monuments and other carved stones at Applecross, including three fragments (Applecross 1, 2 and 3) that together likely belonged to the same cross-slab. Both the Applecross slab (Applecross 1–3) and the newly discovered fragments are decorated with relief-carved, geometric ornament common to early medieval Britain and Ireland, including interlace, key and step patterns, and are of exceptional workmanship. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the patterns, which reveals that at least 16 of the 18 new fragments also belonged to the same monument as Applecross 1–3. In particular, the author has applied a new, artist-focused, artwork-centred approach to the study of key pattern and its structure, drawn from her doctoral research of this type of ornament. Through close physical analysis of the internal symmetry of individual spiral units and the negative (carved-out) lines in these key patterns, it is possible to identify where the new fragments were located on the Applecross monument, as well as their orientation within it. Furthermore, detailed analysis of the patterns’ negative lines confirms that Applecross was linked to Nigg and likely also to Rosemarkie – two contemporary, high-status, Pictish ecclesiastical sites in Easter Ross – and that a single carver or team produced stone sculpture in all three places. The Nigg cross-slab and Rosemarkie’s collection of carved stones are widely recognised as amongst the finest in the Pictish corpus, and the Applecross fragments rival them in their supreme, virtuoso quality. This is the first concrete evidence for a single Pictish artistic hand on multiple artworks – a master carver or expert team whose oeuvre spanned both Easter and Wester Ross and who created some of the greatest surviving art-historical monuments in Britain.

The Farmacy: Wild and Cultivated Plants in Early Medieval England

The Farmacy: Wild and Cultivated Plants in Early Medieval England

‘Charms’, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England, by Ciaran Arthur

For as long as man has harboured belief in a higher power, be it for good or evil, the use of magic spells, charms, curses and incantations has thrived. In this latest book on the subject, Ciaran Arthur focuses on tenth- to twelfth-century documentary sources in which the Old English word galdor appears. It is Arthur’s contention that this ‘problematic noun’, hitherto loosely translated as ‘charm’ and often associated with medieval witchcraft, black magic and sorcery, has a rather more diffuse meaning. In a detailed study of each manuscript in which the word appears, he aims to dispel the commonly-held view that galdru are always associated with pagan rituals or, at best, popular religion, proposing instead that they represent diverse rituals accepted by compilers into mainstream Christian texts. Carl Watkins, in his History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (2007), is one of several recently-published historians who have already shown how the ‘ambiguous supernatural’ was to some extent absorbed into Christianity. Wonders, which were of God but also of nature, blurred the boundaries between what was Christian and what pagan in a world where people struggled to explain unusual and extraordinary events. If we accept ‘charms’ in this way, observes Arthur, we challenge traditionally-held views about the nature of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, revealing it to be ‘vibrant’ and willing to experiment with rituals for different occasions.

Feeding the dragon: The devouring monster in Anglo-Saxon eschatological imagery

This essay deals with two intertwined eschatological motifs of the literary and iconographic culture of early medieval England: the devouring devil, especially in the guise of a dragon, and the mouth of hell, fashioned as the jowls of a zoomorphic monster, arguably a distinctively English adaptation of the anthropomorphic mouth of hell of classical descent. The following analysis will outline the intricate, creative interplay of crucial themes of Christian eschatology and demonology, on which theimagery of the demonic devouring dragon and the mouth of hell can be said to ultimately rely. In particular, it will be argued that the coalescence of these two widespread motifs into the distinctively Anglo-Saxon imagery of the zoomorphic mouth of hell may have been triggered by the cosmology and eschatology of two apocrypha especially popular in early medieval England, the Seven Heavens apocryphon and the Gospel of Nicodemus, especially its section on the Descensus ad Inferos. The discussion of relevant textual, manuscript, and iconographic evidence willafford intriguing insights into the shaping of this syncretic blending, as well as hinting at the milieu where such a blending may have been if not initiated, then at least endorsed and popularised.Keywords: Anglo-Saxon eschatology; apocrypha; mouth of hell; source studies; manuscript studies

The influence of war on population-based fracture distribution patterns: An example from medieval England.

Elevated levels of non-accidental fractures in different populations, regions, and time periods are considered an indicator for violence within a population. Whilst soldiers from a mass grave contribute unambiguously to the bioarchaeological evidence for the presence of warfare in medieval England, we aim to further analyse the absence of temporal variation in the general population-wide fracture distribution pattern. A detailed study, consisting only of clearly dated and aged male individuals was conducted to investigate the impact of prolonged warfare and general instability by means of blunt force fracture distribution patterns in early (AD 1066-1100), middle (AD 1100-1380) and late (AD 1380-1558) medieval England. Statistically significant differences were only observed between the 26-35 years age group of the middle period (AD 1100-1380) vs the 18-25 year age group of the late period (AD 1380-1558). The latter included many individuals from Towton, North Yorkshire, and therefore battle-related injuries are reflected in the pattern. The former presented inconclusive causal effects, none of them could be reliably linked to warfare. It was concluded that aside from the inclusion of battle-related graves no evidence for the impact of prolonged warfare and economic instability could be observed in medieval England.

Angels in Early Medieval England

Book Review| April 01 2019 Angels in Early Medieval England Angels in Early Medieval England. By Richard Sowerby. Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 256; 12 illustrations. $95. Jill Fitzgerald Jill Fitzgerald United States Naval Academy Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Journal of English and Germanic Philology (2019) 118 (2): 252–254. https://doi.org/10.5406/jenglgermphil.118.2.0252 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Jill Fitzgerald; Angels in Early Medieval England. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 1 April 2019; 118 (2): 252–254. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jenglgermphil.118.2.0252 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressThe Journal of English and Germanic Philology Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia

Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia

Archaeology and the built environment of early medieval England

The bulk of people we can now be assured, were content with something that hardly deserves a better title than that of a hovel […] in such cabins, with bare head room, amid a filthy litter of broken bones, of food and shattered pottery […] lived the Anglo-Saxons (Leeds 1936: 25–26). This quote from E.T. Leeds, a pioneer of Anglo-Saxon archaeology during the first half of the twentieth century, was inspired by his excavation of settlement remains at Sutton Courtenay, then in Berkshire. Leeds's excavations were actually a breakthrough moment, resulting in the first identification of early medieval settlement structures other than those associated with ecclesiastical sites. In spite of this, the frustration and disappointment with the character and quality of the Sutton Courtenay site are all too apparent in Leeds's assessment. As an expert in Anglo-Saxon artwork, how could he reconcile the skill and craft of fine metalwork, with the ephemeral and impoverished settlement with which he was now dealing? Likewise, where were the great charismatic halls of monumental construction that populated such literary sources as Beowulf? The excavation of the graves of Sutton Hoo, two years after investigations at Sutton Courtney came to a close, served only to amplify the disparity between settlement and burial archaeology—put simply, burials were viewed as richer, grander and far more interesting.